“The true harvest of my life is intangible – a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

“There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?” ~ Woody Allen

Ah, the paradox between poetry and practicality, art and accounting, beauty and bottom line, meaning and metrics.Especially in this results-oriented, materially-focused, high-powered metropolis that is New York, it’s often challenging to communicate the value of things we are unable to touch, see, or can be precisely measured.

After assigning some journaling to a client recently, she seemed perplexed and not too happy about it. When inquiring what was the problem, her concern she said, was because as graduate of MIT, it would be difficult without having any sort of metrics or immediate tangible outcome to guide her or let her know she was doing it ‘correctly’, which her perfectionist self needed in order to be validated in the exercise. She was not the first to be challenged by or question the effectiveness of the solution I offered, just the first to articulate it so well.

This type of scenario has been the bane of my existence, as the world of the intangible has been my field of expertise and the ‘meat’ of my work for most of my professional life – teaching or speaking, creating programs that promote intercultural understanding and women’s empowerment, individual and group coaching, even writing these posts. Most everything I do is impactful on an internal level, enabling shifts in perception and healing to take place, so my challenge has always been how to grade, evaluate, measure or assure the merit of such things; how do you quantify understanding, inspiration, identity, and transformation?

With flowers and trees now blooming all around us, remember that they didn’t just magically appear overnight – there was an unseen force at work during the barren winter months – the result is tangible, but the process itself is a thing, too. Fertile soil, sunshine, water, time and nature’s mysterious special sauce work consistently in harmony behind the scenes, making it all come together for us to once again enjoy the gorgeous potpourri of colors and shapes.

Feeling like your Spring needs to be sprung? You might just need a little professional tending to your garden along with some Xray vision, so give me a buzz – I’ll bring on the blossom and have Everything Coming Up Roses for you again! ‘